24th July 2022
By Justin Dyche in Sunday Service on 30 July 2022
Dear Church Family
Well, it certainly was a scorcher at the beginning of the week wasn’t it, I hope you’re all doing well and enjoying a still sunny but slightly cooler Saturday. I was at St Leonard, Rockingham on Monday testing out a live stream for an upcoming wedding there and was amazed at how cool it was inside the building compared to the heat outside. It was good to stop for a moment there and enjoy some time with God in the quiet and the still.
It is of course the end of term for many of our young people, I know my own two youngest have been counting down the days until the end of term – they finished yesterday and are looking forward to their summer holidays. Our children’s groups at church have now also finished for the summer. It’s worth thinking about and remembering our young people at this time, particularly those who will now be waiting for GCSE, A Level, BTEC and other results before planning and looking forward to what comes next in September. Please also do be praying for all of those involved in working with young people, teachers and lecturers, school staff, youth workers and more for all the work they do. Pray for our own Energize team and for Get Closer our midweek youth meeting, it’s been so good to see our young people get together again after all of the disruption from COVID. Please do also be praying for the Gen2 team who help lead work with children and young people across the diocese. Many of you will of course know Pete White, who heads up the Gen2 team, as he was here at St Columba with Nat, his wife, who was the curate here at St Columba only a few years ago. Massive congratulations to Pete on becoming Doctor Pete White having recently completed his Phd.
SUNDAY SERVICES
This Sunday’s 10:30AM service is an All Age Worship service and if you can come in person please do as it’s a hands-on service and although we will be live streaming the service it’s one to experience in person if possible. Speaking of the live stream you can see it here: https://youtu.be/5LXVRn2nD_4
We also have a 5PM Holy Communion Service this Sunday, a slightly quieter service, so do come along to that and enjoy meeting with God through the Eucharist, straight after will be our 6pm HIA Prayer Meeting as normal.
PRAYER
Mentioning COVID as I have I would be remiss if I didn’t ask you all to keep praying for those who have COVID, quite a few members of the church have had it recently, happily most seem to be well on the road to recovery but it does show us that COVID is still around and amongst us.
The operation on Maria, Sheila’s daughter is this week – the 27th so do be praying for that as well, in Sheila’s own words: “Please pray for Maria as she faces her quite serious operation on 27th July. Pray that all will go well, and that she will get at least some of her movement back. On top of that, she has just been diagnosed with carpal tunnel syndrome in her good arm.”
If you have any prayer requests do let us know, we can pray for them as a small group or as the wider church depending on your own preference, but it would be good to hold in prayer anything you want to bring before God.
I’m including the updates on next Sunday and New Wine below as they were from last week’s email, do keep praying for Ian and Miriam as they will be at New Wine at the start of next week as well.
MISSION PARTNERS
As mentioned last week we are looking forward to welcoming our CMS mission partners on 31st July. This will be their first visit to St Columba’s and due to sensitivities about where they work we only know them as M and H, although we look forward to learning their names when we meet! In the service on 31st M will be preaching and H leading a special session of ENERGIZE so that our children and young people can learn more about their work.
After the service we will have a BRING & SHARE LUNCH with M & H so do please put 31st July in your diary and plan to join us for the service and lunch.
NEW WINE
Many of you will be familiar with the New Wine Summer Gatherings. These are taking pace at the East of England Showground in Peterborough, and there are two identical ” weeks”: A from 23 to 28 July and B from 29 July to 3 August. It is possible to engage with New Wine either as a Day Visitor or online and details of these options are shown below:
Day Tickets (best not to go on the first or last day of each “week” when there is not a full programme) cost £45 per person and can be booked via this link:
https://new-wine.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=e89eafa09abea41a8dd8bbdd5&id=9c271fdff9&e=9790575aae
Online Tickets only give access to early morning Bible Teaching and the main Morning & Evening Celebrations each day including the first evening and last morning. PLEASE NOTE there is a 24 hour delay on these broadcasts so the dates are: Week A from 24 to 29 July and Week B from 30 July to 4 August and the broadcasts are only available for 48 hours. These cost £40 per household for either Week A or Week B and can be booked via this link:
https://new-wine.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=e89eafa09abea41a8dd8bbdd5&id=a00b09c347&e=9790575aae
You can enjoy getting lost in a few puzzles as we have another great update from Steve, in the form of Puzzles and other Stuff 80.
If any of you were reading carefully last week you may have noticed that when I mentioned tomorrow’s all-age service I said it would be great to see you there as we explore worshipping God together through song, prayer, scripture and prayer. If you read that carefully you may have noticed I mentioned prayer twice! That’s because our All-Age service tomorrow is focussed on prayer, we’ll be looking at the beginning of Luke 11 where Jesus taught the disciple’s how to pray using what we now know as The Lord’s Prayer. It would be great to see you there as we explore prayer together.
Grace and Peace
Kevin
Curate, St Columba
07512 822422